


Erinnyes

by queenofchildren



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Greek Mythology-inspired, bellarke if you squint, canon compliant until 2x08, mentions of violence and character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-08 02:25:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3191798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofchildren/pseuds/queenofchildren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People have always remembered angry women. These were their names when they were goddesses still: Megaira, Tisiphone, Alecto. </p><p>Centuries later, their earth has been ravaged, their names have changed. But their rage is still the same.   </p><p>In the end, Mount Weather is brought down by three angry girls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Megaira, The Grudging

**Author's Note:**

> This is my take on what happens after 2x08. It deviates a little from canon at the beginning.  
> Lyrics are from Brandi Carlile's 'Raise Hell'.

_I've been down with a broken heart_  
_since the day I learned to speak._  
_The devil gave me a crooked start_  
_when he gave me crooked feet._

For days after Finn's death, Raven lies on her bed, feeling boneless and immobile, and tries to find her anger again. She has felt it simmering under her tough, carefree surface for as long as she can remember, from the earliest memories of her mother telling her they didn't get any rations with the smell of moonshine on her breath to the day they told her that her heart was the one machine part she wouldn't be able to fix herself. It has been the thing that drove her, and she relied on it to get her through everything earth throws at her, too. That was her entire plan to save Finn: redirect the grounders' anger at someone else – Murphy, Clarke, anyone. And Clarke foiled that plan.

Now Raven still has anger enough to fuel a mob but she can't seem to tap into it, and it's all Clarke's fault. Clarke took the source of Raven's strength away and made herself stronger in the process. Clarke is all steel now, from her steady hands to her unblinking eyes, and Raven envies her. She was steel too, once – not Clarke's cold, hard, blue variety but red-hot molten steel that could mold itself into any shape it needed to be and simply burn through resistance.

So Raven lies there in her tiny room inside the old space station, facing the wall, getting mixed up on which parts of her are actually paralyzed and which ones only feel like it – only one leg, she reminds herself; the rest of her limbs simply chose to stop working. Abby, Bellamy, Wick and Sinclair take turns looking in on her, offering her sleeping pills and food and company and she accepts everything as long as she doesn't have to move a muscle.

It's not exactly a comfort to have them there, but it also doesn't increase her anger unless they leave, because she knows that's when they return to Clarke's side, at least Abby and Bellamy, and that is not fair. Clarke isn't the one who lost someone, she's the one who _took_ Finn, took first his heart and then his life even though she knew he was all Raven had. Clarke doesn't deserve their pity.

And yet Clarke is the one who's back on her feet first. Raven can hear her talking to Bellamy outside her door.

“I don't care if she doesn't want to see me, Bellamy. We need her. She'll just have to get over it.“

That callous statement is the only reason why Raven turns to face Clarke when she enters her room, because it makes it satisfyingly clear that Clarke didn't walk away unscathed from what she did. On the contrary, the Clarke from before would never have spoken so pitilessly about anyone. She would have tried to help her, would have been all soft words and supporting touches, and Raven would have felt even more immobilized.

Instead, Clarke strides into the room with energetic steps and an extra layer of steel around her backbone, followed by a nervous-looking Bellamy.

“Raven, we need you to build another bomb.”

Raven doesn't reply, but somehow she manages to sit up on her own, and that is new. She sees Bellamy's eyes widen in surprise, the nervousness on his face being replaced by hope, and her heart aches for him. She knows he just wants them all to be okay, but they won't be, and there's nothing he can do about it.

“What for?”

“Mount Weather. We're moving in in two days, the grounder forces and Ark guards together.”

Raven shrugs, another rusty movement that pleasantly loosens her tense shoulders.

“Get someone else to do it. It's not hard.”

“We'll need something a little more sophisticated than hydrazene in a tin can this time. The others say you're the only one who can do it. Wick is willing to help, but he says he's scared to do it alone.”

Raven knows that's bullshit. There's nothing Wick loves more than a good bang – literally and figuratively – but it's probably his attempt to lure her out of here. Bury her in work to make her forget her pain, that sounds like a strategy he cooked up together with Abby and Sinclair, because it seems to have worked so marvellously on Clarke. Raven sneers and remains silent.

Clarke sighs, the straight angle of her steel spine sagging by the tiniest degree. She's weakening, and Raven did it. That's something, at least.

Slowly, the girl who could have been a friend in a different life comes closer and sits down next to her, hesitating before gently taking Raven's hand in her small, strong one. Even that tiny little movement speaks of so much strength, strength that used to be Raven's. And now, finally, she can feel her limbs waking up, can feel her old fire slowly crawling through her veins as she listens to Clarke's plea, presented in her melodious voice that promises so much and delivers so little.

“Raven, I know you're in pain, but if we don't take down Mount Weather soon, we'll lose 47 more people. Think about it.”

Raven pulls her hand away and Clarke looks like she slapped her and it feels _good_.

“Alright. Give your specifications to Wick and I'll tell him what we'll need.”

Clarke looks surprised but she gets up, clearly yearning to be somewhere else, away from the glaring testament to her guilt that is Raven. She's not stupid enough to thank her.

“And Clarke?”

Clarke is almost by the door but she turns and looks at her. Raven sees the same kind of hope flicker across her face that she spotted on Bellamy's before, but in Clarke, Raven wants to destroy it.

“Don't come here again.”

And finally she's made a dent in Clarke's steely armour, Raven knows as the blonde practically flees through the door. Bellamy hesitates for a moment, looking back and forth between Raven and the door Clarke left through, until Raven absolves him.

“Go.” She tries not to sound bitter, but she knows even though Bellamy is her friend, he'll always choose Clarke over her, over everyone except his sister. And that's as it should be, of course, because Clarke keeps the Sky People alive and Bellamy keeps Clarke together, but it's still hard not to feel like this has somehow become Raven's fate, people choosing Clarke over her. The thought is ridiculously melodramatic and self-pitying and not at all like her, and Raven rolls her eyes at herself.

Still, Raven thinks as she wiggles the toes on her good leg, at least anger and hatred aren't that far apart. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been meaning to finish 'Eliminating Threats', but of course the muses made me write something else instead.   
> I found it really painful to write about Raven hating Clarke because I want them to be friends so badly, but I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon.


	2. Tisiphone, The Vengeful Destruction

_You have a mind to keep me quiet_

_and although you can try,_

_better men have hit their knees_

_and bigger men have died._

 

Octavia hasn't had a chance to try her hand at a lot of things in life, but she has discovered a few talents over the years: She's good at cross-stitch and reading, at being perfectly silent and even at slowing down her pulse so her heart only beats every other second and her breathing is almost inaudible. She's good at hiding in spaces her body should by the laws of physics not even fit into, and she's good at surviving when she's not supposed to. That talent, she discovers when she sets foot on earth, goes hand in hand with another one: Octavia is good at fighting.

She shares that talent with her brother, but while Bellamy fights to defend himself and others, to establish dominance or to let out his frustrations, Octavia fights because it gives her a sense of herself. The first time she wielded a weapon, she felt power surge through her, turning her from a forbidden object into a person of her own, someone who knows they have a right to exist and will fight for that right. At some point after attacking the reapers it occurs to her that she must have spilled more blood than her body is made up of, and surely that means that there's finally enough space for her. The thought doesn't seem as morbid to her as it should.

There's not a lot of use for reading and cross-stitch on earth, and only sometimes the need to hide, so Octavia fights – fights to survive being kidnapped and hunted and attacked and she emerges victorious and free. Once they make it to the relative safety of Camp Jaha, its old restrictions threaten to engulf her once more, and for a second she swears she can feel the metal walls of her crawlspace closing in on her. When she walks through the gate and sees the guards jump in to take Bellamy's gun, she grips her sword so tightly that her knuckles whiten, ready to mow them down and run if they try to take away her weapon, her self. They don't.

They tell her she's safe at the camp, but it is here she fights even more – for the freedom to come and go like the autonomous person she is, for a chance to protect the people she loves in whichever way she sees fit. She fights to be allowed into their meetings and included in their plans, fights for Lincoln's restraints to be removed, fights to hold on to her sword so she can practice even though the guards eye the weapon with a mix of distrust and greed. It has become source and symbol of her power; her chance to come out of hiding, take up space and make herself heard, and she will not give it up.

With the sword strapped to her back, she raises her voice when they try to shut her out. She has been forced into silence long enough, playing dead for so long her vocal chords hurt when she tried to speak afterwards. These days, she is only ever silent because she chooses to, because it serves her. Silence won't serve her when Chancellor Griffin decides that no one underage is to participate in the raid on Mount Weather, when her brother backs the decision because he cannot let go of the mission their mother gave him sixteen years ago. Silence is what rings at her from Clarke's direction when she asks the girl to back her up, to tell them to let her fight.

So she tells them herself: Tells them about Lincoln and what they did to him and his people and how he can't fight right now but he can give her his sword and trust in her strength and her fury. She tells them about the people she has killed for him and for Bellamy and about the fact that she'll do it all again in a heartbeat, and probably will once they make it into Mount Weather. And only when the last threat to her people is removed will she start figuring out if there's any other way to live.

One day, Octavia hopes, she'll be able to let go of her anger and stop fighting. They'll be living in peace then, her and Lincoln and Bellamy and Clarke and Raven and Monty and Jasper and the others, with no one trying to hurt them, and she'll lay down her sword and her anger and spend her days basking in love like she's yearning to.

Octavia drank in enough stories during the grey, narrow years of her childhood to know about the 'power of love', but it's not love they need right now. So she transforms it into other feelings as she looks at the people she loves and thinks about the things they've suffered through.

She helps Lincoln slowly make his way out of medical on trembling limbs and watches him blink into the bright sunlight knowing he'll probably get a headache within an hour, again. Abby says they're just a side effect of the withdrawal that will pass in time, but it still pains her to see his strong body so incapacitated. So she becomes his strength, his arm draped over her shoulder and her muscles straining to hold his weight even when they start to ache and tremble.

She watches Bellamy push for a move on Mount Weather while simultaneously trying to help Clarke and Raven come to terms with Finn's death. She sees his proud shoulders stooping under the weight of their grief and a constrant frown furrowing his face even though it's a face made for smiling, all dimples and laugh lines. So she becomes his optimism, walking beside him with a spring in her step and his old, cocky smile on her face and 'It's going to be fine' on her lips.

But for herself, and for Raven and Clarke and her friends trapped at Mount Weather, she becomes fury.

She grips her sword and enters the underground fortress the same way the  Mountain Men's  ancestors did 97 years ago, through the garage. She's silent and deadly and she won't leave until everything these people have built with other people's blood is burned to ashes.

 


	3. Alecto, The Unceasing

_I sent my love across the sea_   
_and though I didn't cry_   
_that voice will haunt my every dream_   
_until the day I die._

 

Clarke knows about fight-or-flight – every other day on earth is a matter of fight-or-flight, it seems.

After Finn's death, when she has to use every bit of her energy just to keep her mind from whispering _You killed him_ over and over again, fleeing seems like a tempting option for a few seconds. But while Clarke may not care much about her own life anymore when she sits in Lexa's tent with blood on her hands, hundreds of people do, grounders and Arkers alike, and they're putting their faith in her. So she stays and fights.

Every warrior has to put on armour before going into battle, and Clarke starts by refusing her mother's comfort and sending Bellamy on a suicide mission even though the thought of losing him paralyses her. She knows they only mean to help, but what they're offering, safety and comfort and the chance to stop and rest and let someone else handle things, is too tempting and it would be the death of her to accept.

But with every step Clarke runs through the forest, every bullet she fires, every person she defies from her mother to Lexa's generals, the image of Finn fades a little more. As exhausting as fighting may be, at least it means she doesn't stop. She convenes with grounders and Ark councillors, chases Mountain Men through the forest and looks in on Raven tinkering with the radio, and she never, ever stands still. The hardest moment since Finn drew his last breath was when she sat down to rest afterwards, and she's not going to make that same mistake again. She may not get up again if she does.

And she's not the only one who works like this, Clarke realizes with a look at Raven's tireless work on the reaper whistle and Octavia trailing after Indra with her hand on her sword at all times. The knowledge that she's taken away Raven's family and may be in the process of taking Octavia's too is just another motivating reminder of the black hole of guilt that awaits her if she ever, ever stops.

It is only once that she's tempted to give up, when the prisoner's blood reveals that her friends are already being drained at Mount Weather and her mother just won't let her _do_ anything and there is no word from Bellamy no matter how often she tells everyone that he'll make it. But the moment she says 'It's over' Raven tells her that she's not allowed to give up, for Finn. And if it took any more than Raven's furious grief to convince her to keep going, Bellamy's voice on the radio does the trick. She didn't kill him, at least, and she won't abandon him a second time, or the 47 friends still trapped under that mountain and the grounder prisoners who are their only chance of preventing a war.

So Clarke keeps going.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this ended up shorter than I thought it would. But I had written a little bit on the idea of Clarke as The Unceasing, and when the show kind of presented it the same way, I got inspired to finish it.  
> Megaira, Tisiphone and Alecto and their respective descriptors are the names of the Erinnyes, called 'Furies' in English, ancient Greco-Roman deities of vengeance. Their role, according to my Internet research, was to torment people who broke oaths or committed crimes.  
> I'm not sure if I'll actually write another chapter to this, but I do kind of want to have Bellamy watch as those three raise hell. So who knows.


End file.
